Concept of development of the IT industry of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic

In August, 2014 on economic council at the government of Yakutia the concept of development of IT in the region, reported on the website of governmental bodies of Yakutia was approved. The source well familiar with the course of preparation of the concept told TAdviser that on its basis it is going to develop the corresponding subprogramme and to include it in one of two state programs existing in the republic - "Development of Information Society in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic for 2012-2016" or "Scientific and Technical and Innovative Development of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic for 2012-2016".

Authors of the project calculate that program implementation on development of IT will allow not only to gain economic effect in Yakutia, but even to bring the republic to global market in the field of software developments, says governmental bodies of the region.

One of the central elements of the concept is gain of personnel capacity of the republic in the field of IT. Data are provided in the document of the concept which TAdviser studied that annually in the republic about 300 specialists in universities from which only 30% are arranged in the IT industry are issued. At the same time in the IT industry only 1.1% of the busy population of Yakutia while in the developed countries this indicator is usually 4-5% work. At a meeting of economic council it was also noted that many IT specialists are forced to go to other regions.

The authorities of Yakutia set as the purpose to increase number of IT specialists and the IT companies in the region.

"Yakutia at the available talented programmers cannot brag of a big flow of the IT solutions broadcast out of borders of the republic", - the representative of the State Committee noted at a meeting of economic council. He also paid attention that in the republic of costs of the state and business on informatization would be much less if the local personnel participated in software developments.

The government of Yakutia noted that the republic can prepare software products which it buys from the outside: "we have a potential, we know that we are able to do it better and more effectively".

On economic council it was discussed that for correction of provision programmers need full-fledged conditions for work in the republic. In the concept it is noted that during creation of such conditions significant increase in domestic demand for products and service of the IT companies in the region is in the future possible, and considerable number of university graduates will be able potentially to work in the IT industry.

Among measures for creating favorable conditions for work of IT specialists authors of the concept suggest to create in Yakutia the IT park and network district a co-working centers where it is possible to organize rational workflow and also to organize access to a data processing center and support of the IT companies at the initial stage.

The source familiar with the course of development of the concept told TAdviser that under the IT park it is going to select the territory about 21 thousand sq.m. In it office spaces for the IT companies, school of programming, institutes of development, the center of beta testing, the apartment for nonresident IT specialists and many other things should be located.

Besides, according to the interlocutor of TAdviser, the regional authorities agreed with Microsoft about providing on favorable terms a MSDN subscription on which local programmers will be able to get access to funds of development of corporation.

Authors of the concept of development of IT in the region expect that thanks to implementation of the proposed measures the number of the IT companies in Yakutia will grow with about 30 at the time of development of the document to about 100 by 2022, and the volume of products made by them and services will grow from 0.77 billion rubles to 10 billion rubles to the same term.